Team Owner Wants Legal Action Taken For Sway Bar Found In Other Team’s Possession

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — According to Jack Roush, it’s lawyer time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage area.
According to nearly everyone else, however, it’s time to lighten up.
At issue is Roush’s contention that “a non-descript Toyota team stole” a Roush Fenway Racing sway bar at last fall’s Dover race, one that was proprietary to Roush’s team.
The owner of that Toyota team, Michael Waltrip, said that yes, the part in question wound up at his shop, but  until someone from Roush Fenway Racing called asking about it, neither he nor anyone  else on his team realized it was there.
In Roush’s account of the story, he added that a member of Waltrip’s team had called a vendor to see about having it duplicated, and the sway bar was returned with the blue paint sandblasted off it.
“I don’t have knowledge of any of that,” Waltrip said Saturday. “I heard it was painted blue, and when we figured out that it wasn’t ours, then it was set off to the side and eventually returned...We wound up with a sway bar there somehow — I promise you that no one went to their tool box and swiped it. This is not intellectual espionage.”
Roush spent more than half an hour in the media center on Friday talking tough about how this kind of thing needs to be prevented, but it is not clear whether it was theft or a simple case of collecting a part in the chaos of the garage area.
“What’s he doing with stuff just laying around the garage area?” four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon asked. “If that was a proprietary piece, I think that you would have some tighter grip on it (laughing), not letting it go. I think the whole thing is just hilarious.
“I really hope Jack (Roush) is not taking it that serious because he shouldn’t,” Gordon said. “It really (laughs) is kind of something to smile about and if he’s really that upset about it, I want to really know what’s going on with that sway bar, man. Maybe there’s something that we’re missing that really truly is contributing to how fast their cars are. I don’t think it is.”
Gordon said that the loss of the sway bar was a case of being careless.
“A lot of us have a little bit different design sway bars. Once we start getting into the really big sway bars, trying to figure out how to lighten them up is definitely important, so I don’t know, maybe they figured something out on that design and they didn’t want it to get out of their garage. I guess you shouldn’t leave it laying around then either, where somebody can grab it.
“When I talked to some of my guys on my team and they said you’d be surprised, you’re cleaning up or you’re in post-race inspection and stuff gets laid around and you could take it, you could not take it, you could tell a NASCAR official that it was just laying here, whatever. It happens all the time. If they don’t claim it, I think its kind of yours (laughing). I don’t really know what the deal was. The difference is Roush wanted it back and he got it back.”
Gordon said, tongue in cheek, that an investigation should be launched.
“I think he should investigate, I think the FBI should get involved,” he said to laughter.
Roush initially took the issue to NASCAR, but NASCAR said it was a team issue, not a sanctioning body issue.
“At the core of NASCAR’s inspection process is the openness of how we do things in the garage area,” NASCAR spokesperson Kerry Tharp said. “That’s been our style for years and will continue to be. It’s one of the elements of our sport that makes it unique. This particular matter was brought to our attention a while back, and we believe it’s something that the teams involved need to work out among themselves.”
Toyota’s Lee White, a former Roush employee who was at the center of the oil lid flap at Las Vegas, said in a statement that the issue was between teams, not manufacturers.
“Relative to the ‘sway bar issue’ that Jack Roush referenced this morning, from our perspective this is an issue that appears to be between two race teams and does not involve a manufacturer,” White said.
As a result, Roush’s lawyers for the team are pondering legal injunction against MWR.
“I’ve had three discussions with NASCAR people, not all the same person, as I attempted to work my way through this with an appropriate sanction, and relief could be given to me for the theft that occurred,” Roush said.
When he learned that the sway bar was missing and found out where it wound up, Roush went ballistic.
“I found out about it and I wanted to go supersonic,” Roush said. “We’re going up (there). We’re going to get a search warrant. We’re going to get the bar. It’s intellectual espionage that’s going on here. They’ve stolen the part. They’ve got access to it. They’ve had an opportunity to see what it does, see what its efficiency for weight and for function are, and we’ve been damaged. We’ve been harmed by this theft.
“So before I get things organized to tell people what to do about this, one of my managers calls a manager for that team and says, ‘You know, we’ve got information and confirmation that somebody from your team has stolen the bar and that it’s in your possession.’ I heard that had been done and I said, ‘That was stupid. That thing will wind up in the river some place. It’ll be gone. We’ve missed our chance to get our arms around this thing.’
“But we got the call back and the manager said, ‘I had no knowledge of that,’ and I believed that was true. He went back and he found that they had the bar and they chose to tell us that they had the bar. Again, without my knowledge — there are 300-400 people that work for Roush Fenway that do things every day that I would like to have my arms around, but I can’t do that, try as I might — so a clandestine meeting was arranged at six o’clock in the morning to return the bar, one manager to the other. I got the bar back.
“It’s been sandblasted. It’s got its appearance changed, but it’s still got the serial number on it, and it’s got all the proprietary considerations that it had. It hasn’t been re-machined. It hasn’t been changed in shape. It hasn’t been welded on. They didn’t grind the numbers off. It’s my bar. I’ve got it back.”
Waltrip understands why Roush is upset.
“If it were truly something that I felt there any way anyone purposely went and got it for any specific reason…I could see why he would be upset. He feels like he was wronged and he’s mad about it. That’s his prerogative. I respect that man. If you look around the garage area and see four or five cars and teams, that’s him. He came up with that idea and proved it to be the most effective way to race cars.
“I’ve always admired Jack and I will never judge him. I don’t know what makes him tick, but I do know that no one went to his tool box and swiped his sway bar.”